diane swonk, will cain and roland martin. roland, you just gave us a real good outlook about the fact that we are driven by instant numbers and we want high growth and solutions. i want to ask you about this, will. we are acknowledging in this conversation that there might be two alternate realities for america going forward. one is a long time of either stagnation or very slow growth, or something more drastic. your thoughts. >> ali, soon e or later it gets back to politics. we ask ourself, now that we've diagnosed the problem, what do we do? what are our tools? i would suggest there's about three. i'm a conservative. one is fiscal stimulus. that's a stimulus plan coming out of congress. i don't believe in the effectiveness of those programs. i believe they become political boondoggles. i would suggest to expect que.e3 and beyond. >> let's take this opportunity to explain a couple of those terms. will has drawn a distinction between fiscal stimulus and monetary stimulus. as we concentrate on that stimulus bill, the monetary s

bring your challenges. >>> steam was coming out of roland martin's ears before the break when we wereking about the bush tax cuts and whether in the end they were good or bad for america. roland? >> you look at the omb and what they have to say and the gao. at the end of the day, we sit here and say, tax cuts -- i'm a high-income earner. i would love to sit here and keep saying oh, cut, cut, cut. but the problem is we want to sit here and say, cut but also spend, but also if you cut taxes, don't cut the oil subsidies. as will talked about, don't cut the deductions. look at what's happening in europe right now. the people there are freaking out because of the austerity plans because they have lived that way for so many years. and when you have so much debt, you're going to have to stop something. same thing in this country. we don't want to let go of anything. at some point, we have to have a balancing act. you can't keep saying, cut, cut, cut, that's going to solve all our problems. it's not. >> we need to distinguish two things. there's the current economic problem and the debt atrib

. >> cnn political contributor roland martin joins us now. ched reggie brown's whole routine. do you think it crossed a line with his obama jokes? >> okay, we're talking about a comedian. that's what comedians do. they often cross the line. you know, joe, every day, when i get a stupid tweet from somebody, i say congratulations, you have won the stuck on stupid tweet of the day. this issue right here is truly being stuck on stupid. he's a comedian. he's impersonating president obama. and so, clearly, he is going to make fun of himself on the front end, and naturally, he is going to make fun of republicans. and so, i don't understand why people are getting upset with a comedian who told jokes. shocker. >> all right, well, why did people at the rlc get upset? do you think that audience is different from, say, some other washington audience or an audience of democrats or non-partisan or what have you? >> okay, here's the deal. if you don't want a comedian to go over the line, a line no one can define, don't invite a comedian. and so, look, i've h

>> pete, we don't want to mention what the six nieces doing under the hand of roland martin -- >> you of -- kyra, i'm sure five of roland's nieces are upstanding individuals. listen, kyra, you can have 100 kid, black kid, white kid, rich kid, poor kids. doesn't matter how many kid us have. unless one gets americans a job or lowers the price of gas at the pump, i don't think voters care about your kids than the presidential election. >> he's going to run or not. what is he waiting for and would he be worth the wait. ro? >> absolutely. he's a texas a&m graduate. strong candidate. very conservative, gop voter, down side, i still think this country has texas governor fatigue. president george w. bush could still be a drag on any -- governor perry but could be a strong, strong candidate. so i say yay for any texas a&m graduate in the race. >> dana. >> hold me now. i am agreeing with roland which i have never done before. >> actually you have. you just don't want to admit t. >> we had one texas governor who left with not very high ratings -- not a very high approval. i don't know if rick pe

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roland martin is with us now.re something to be said for the major republican argument which is that government has gotten too large and it's inefficient and it needs to be made smaller? that's a pretty good campaign argument, isn't it? >> well, it's always been their campaign argument and again it sounds great until all of a sudden you raise the hood up and you begin to say, what does that really mean? for instance, when we had the bp oil spill, what was the one thing we heard? where were the people checking these oil wells, why weren't they having these inspections? then all of a sudden you go back and check and realize there were too few of them. but then republicans will say, too much regulation, we shouldn't have onerous rules and too many people checking on these difference things. that's the problem. here's what i find to be amazing. when i see these unemployment numbers, we've had 15 consecutive months of private sector job growth. but when the numbers have had a number of jobs, it's always been based upon

roland martin also joining us, republican strategist former gingrich strategist tony blackley. oining us. roland, if the president said today it's a good thing in his words what new york state did the other day in legalizing same-sex marriage, why won't he go that extra step and simply say that gay marriage, he supports gay marriage? >> because actually if you heard what he said, he repeatedly said it should be left up to the states to decide how sthept to move forward. he also said at that lgbt fundraiser last week when he stated that it's a question of how our democracies work, we have these debates, it goes bac forth and the states decide. when he said it's a good thing, that follows along the lines what he has said that states should decide. but look, i don't think for a second he is going to publicly say that he is in favor of gay marriage because it is still a political hot potato. even stud, he did not even assert or even repeat that he believes marriage is between a man or a woman. he frankly danced around it by saying, you know, you could keep asking the question and i'

this is our strategy session, roland martin and cnn.com contributor, david frohm.ll start with you. what do you think? can he survive this politically? >> it started with the hijacking of a conference by andrew breitbart that came to the microphone and he was there to prove that there was a lot of ways besides sexting and then anthony weiner just kept talking and talking and talking and he was finished and kept going. he didn't add anything, just subjected himself and the audience to this extended humiliation. can he survive? people survive things. it's up to the voters, voters can be very tolerant and at some level people are going to wonder, same thing as with chris lee, i think, what exactly is the story here? it's kind of weird behavior. it's a problem for the wife but no laws seem to have been broken. it was dishonest. but i find it hard to believe that this is really the kind of story on which the fate of republicans turn. >> it's interesting, roll laand says he never even met these women, that it was all done via twitter or facebook and maybe engaged in sext

let's bring in our strategy session right now, joining us is our contributor roland martin and davidee that the tension between the president and netanyahu may have picked up 75,000 votes for any republican candidate? >> there hundreds of thousands of votes because florida was hard hit sand one of the hand states at the center of the housing disaster and there is not a sufficient recovery. florida does not feel that way we have seen one more that is very important. we have seen a huge migration of professionals from puerto rico who are american citizens and free move to the mainland into florida. many, many tons of thousands of people. they are upper income. >> how would it be to pick marco rubio? >> he said he is not going to even go for it. >> it's a free country. >> of course, but interestingly you look at what he has done. he has not done anything significant and kept a low profile. the benefit for the obama campaign, scott is very unpopular. republicans thought when he won, it was a boom. i think we are making a mistake trying to suggest it's all about florida. when you look at

joining us, our cnn political contributor roland martin and the republican strategist, the former gingrich publisher of mullings.com. you were press secretary -- >> also dan quayle's press secretary. look how that turned out. >> that was a long time ago. long at this, the recent polls. right now should marriages between gay and lesbian couples be recognized as valid? right now, 51% say yes. back in 2008, 44% said yes. no is gone from 47% now, 55% in 2008. it looks like, you know, the american public is changing its attitude on this whole issue of gay marriage. why doesn't the president now, he supports civil unions, he supports equal rights for gay couples, why does he continue to refuse to say he supports gay marriage? >> because he has a right to have his own opinion on the issue. there is an assumption -- >> do you think he does or is he just doing that for political purposes? >> we haven't had a conversation on this topic. i do believe, though, that you cannot discount the political reality when it comes to this issue. we can talk about a poll of 51%. the only poll that matter for any

joining us cnn political contributor roland martin and former political contributor norm coleman.now president of the political action network. let me play a clip from texas governor rick perry. he rocked the house in new orleans at a republican conference over the weekend. >> let's stand up. let's speak with pride about our morals and our values and redouble our effort to elect more conservative republicans. let's stop this american downward spiral. >> everybody who was there said he did the best among that crowd. roland, you're originally from texas. he's been the governor now ever since 2001. i get the sense he's running. what do you think? >> well, first of all, look, he is an attractive candidate, figuratively and literally. if you talk to many republican women. and certainly strong republican credentials. i still believe, though, that part of the problem for a governor rick perry, somebody who i know well, texas a&m graduate, is that we still have this issue of this texas governor, and when you say that, you look at politico.com today, a big story how, look, the republicans